Thursday, May 07, 2009

Twas on the Monday morning the gas man came to call......

Some of you may be familiar with the wonderful comic duo 'Flanders and Swan' from the 1940's and 50's
One of their most familiar songs was the afore mentioned Gas Man song

This is a link to a You tube rendition if you wish to familiarise yourself

And a link to the lyrics

Where, you might ask, is this leading us?

Well last Saturday my beloved husband finally got round to adding the little something to the front garden that I've had in mind since we moved here.

Going back some way to the 'More Clematis Please' post in May 2006, I'd always thought it would be nice to have a line of posts linked by two levels of rope to enable us to grow more climbers up the posts and eventually along the ropes to kill two birds with one stone by indulging my love of clematis and also prettying up the view from my sewing room of the neighbours boring, brick boundary wall.
Rather than cementing the posts in and reducing the amount of plant sustaining soil in the border he opted for metpost spikes instead

Everything was progressing smoothly until the final post was being hammered in

Nigel rushed to the front door shouting frantically for my attention

The post spike had just gone straight into
a gas main!

So as you can imagine a job that was almost finished developed into an afternoon of disruption to both us and our neighbours as not one, not two but eventually five gas men in four separate vehicles turned up and blocked the entire cul de sac

The gas main turned out to supply our next door neighbours and should never have been routed across our front garden so of course they were without gas all afternoon rather than us. Thank goodness she hadn't just put a joint of meat or a fruit cake into the oven

Fortunately the gas men were able to repair the main with a minimum of disruption to both my plants and the newly tarmaced drive

And most luckily Nigel had positioned the post directly over the gas main and hit it square in the middle - had he been an inch or so to the one side of this he would have done a double whammy and caught the electric supply as well - now that might have had a very different, possibly explosive outcome

Once the men had completed the job he was able to finish the last post and here we are awaiting the climbers - a job for next weekend I feel :o)



Then - next job - sorting out the bombsite that is the back garden and turning this into an Italian style courtyard - just hope it doesn't take as long to complete as those posts in the front garden!

Don't think there are any gas mains to the back of the house!

14 comments:

Amanda said...

I love Flanders and Swan! I was saying to the physiotherapist this morning that my body is just like the Gas Man Cometh song - get one thing sorted and something else goes wrong.

sewprimitive karen said...

You had a close call! That guy on the left of Flanders and Swan looks like Robert Mitchum :-). Are those kayaks in your yard or big bananas lol?

McIrish Annie said...

quite an adventure! seems there is never a dull moment with the Bebbs. glad nothing tragic happened and I second your need for more clematis. love, love, love it!

Libby said...

Oh dear . . . . sounds like some of the adventures that go on around here *s*

Clare said...

Yet another Day in the Life from the Bebbs household. Is life ever normal?

loulee said...

Oh Boy!! He doesn't give himself an easy life! So glad he's ok and it's all fixed.
Sounds like you might need Ground Force for the back garden.

Andrea said...

As my mum used to say - you wouldn't read about it - lol ! What a palaver - glad it's all sorted.

Lily Mulholland said...

Oh my goodness Anne! An afternoon of high drama at Chez Bebbs. Thank god it wasn't the electrical cabling like you said!

sewkalico said...

Oh no! That's the kind of thing my DH would do! I recall an incident with some fitted carpet :-D (He prefers not to remember!!)

Ali Honey said...

I think it is part of Murphy's Law, if it is hidden and you are digging you probably will hit it. Around here it is usually water pipes!

alice c said...

I am very impressed with the lengths that you will go to in order to get copy for your blog.

Sew Create It - Jane said...

Who in the dickens name puts a gas main and electric cables RIGHT next to each other!! And surely both should have been in some sort of conduit! I'm so glad it all worked out and that the damage was minimal...like you said it could have been a lot worse.

All that aside, it looks like it will be wonderful when the clematis grows and covers up the brick wall...keep us posted.

julieQ said...

Whoopsie-daisie! Glad all is well that ended well.

meggie said...

Gadzooks! I am glad Gom has not done anything like that, his plant killing activities are more than enough.